Senate Democrats are raising objections to key parts of the new Finance Committee bill due out as early as Wednesday — with Sen. John Rockefeller (D-W.Va.) threatening to vote no on a plan that some in his party worry is tilted too heavily toward winning Republican votes.

Rockefeller so far is the only Democrat to say publicly that he can’t support the bill in its present form, and the Democratic unease with the plan doesn’t appear deep enough to derail it, Senate aides said.
But the Democratic resistance shows that the efforts of Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) to craft a plan that could win some GOP votes could well come at the cost of Democratic unity on the committee — and signal tougher fights ahead with the liberal wing of the party.

“I just think you have a committee’s worth of people with strong opinions,” said one Senate aide. “It’s hard to gauge right now how dug in people are.”

Rockefeller says he wants a public insurance option — not consumer-owned cooperatives, which are included in the Baucus bill — to force competition with private insurers and lower costs for his constituents, who are among the poorest in the country.

“There is no way in the present form that I could vote for it,” Rockefeller told reporters Tuesday.
Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who represents a state with one of the largest immigrant populations, opposes plans to block legal immigrants from receiving health care subsidies for five years and to prohibit illegal immigrants from purchasing insurance at full price in a new marketplace known as an exchange.

Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) has raised objections to billions of dollars in annual fees on industry players such as device manufacturers and insurers.

After months of private, and often secretive, negotiating sessions among three Republicans and three Democrats, the Finance Committee process is set to move to the next phase with the expected release of the bill Wednesday.

None of the three Republicans who have been negotiating with Baucus — Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Mike Enzi of Wyoming and Olympia Snowe of Maine — have signaled that they would support the bill when it is released, despite Baucus’s effort to tailor a bill to their needs. Snowe, for one, said she would not state her position on the bill immediately. “We haven’t finished our discussions,” Snowe said. “It’s not the end. ... It’s the beginning.”

Democratic senators have been particularly vocal in recent days about concerns that the bill will not provide affordable coverage to lower-income Americans. The bill provides government subsidies for people whose income is up to 300 percent above the poverty line.

For those with incomes between 300 and 400 percent above the poverty line, their annual premiums would be capped at 13 percent of their income. It’s a level that Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) says is too high, but it would be less than the current average cost of a family insurance plan, which is $13,375, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

Baucus pushed back at this criticism Tuesday, saying concerns will be addressed.

“Middle-class families are going to be much better off under this bill than they currently are. In fact, the [Congressional Budget Office] said to us that on the individual market, premiums would be cut down 7 or 8 percent.”

Baucus has also secured a certification from the Joint Committee on Taxation and the Congressional Budget Office that wages will increase by $130 billion under the legislation, which averages out to $750 per family, according to a source close to the negotiations.

The savings would come as the result of a proposal to tax high-value insurance plans, which would encourage employers to offer plans under the high-premium threshold. And instead of more generous benefits, they would put that money toward wages, the source said.

On illegal immigration, Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a member of the Gang of Six, said the bill creates a verification system that requires review of Social Security and homeland security records.

“This is going to be a very rigorous process to prevent people who are here illegally from getting assistance,” Conrad said.

Immigrant advocates have described the process as onerous, possibly preventing legal citizens from accessing benefits.

Menendez has yet to speak publicly about his concerns with the immigration provisions, but a Finance Committee source said Menendez has been in talks with Baucus and the White House, which has endorsed a plan to prohibit illegal immigrants from buying insurance through the exchange even if they pay the full cost of the coverage.

Once Baucus releases the bill, committee members will have several days to file amendments to introduce at the committee markup, which is scheduled to begin Tuesday.

Rockefeller said he plans to offer “many, many, many amendments,” including one to add a public option to the bill. He also has concerns about changes to the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a proposal to give states the flexibility to alter Medicaid, which Rockefeller said was a license for governors to cut benefits.

“I have sat beside Max Baucus for 22 years on the Finance Committee. I’m probably his best friend among Democrats on the Finance Committee, but I cannot agree to this bill,” Rockefeller said.
He would not say whether he would oppose the bill even if that meant it would stall in the Finance Committee.

“I’m not going to worry about, ‘Is it coming out of the committee, or is it not coming out of the committee?’” Rockefeller said. “I’m going to vote the way I feel.”